Wotta View!

This is another infrared photo I made recently. The scene is from Keys View in Joshua Tree National Park, looking toward the Southeast.

A few days before, we had high winds which put a lot of dust into the air. The next day, it was amazingly clear, and infrared is able to penetrate atmospheric haze that would appear in a "normal" photo.

The dark horizontal band immediately below the horizon on the left is the Salton Sea. One of the mountain peaks right above the Sea is Signal Mountain, which is in Mexico near the border with California.

Wouldn't you just love to have a house with a view like this?

Woe Is Me!!!

Gloom and doom, gloom and doom...

Today's my birthday. I'm 60 years old! The big six-oh. Good grief, I'm SO old. I guess that's why I use the name "Jurassic Mark" as a handle sometimes.

I know, I know...getting older beats the alternative!

I decided I deserved a small bouquet of flowers, although I didn't pick them. These are Mexican goldpoppies that I found in Joshua Tree National Park, California.

A Handsome Fellow!

Isn't he cute?

I took a series of pictures of this little guy sitting on a branch we inserted in a DirectTV post that used to hold a dish antenna. The males like to fly up to an observation post so they can see what's going on and to alert the rest of the covey if danger is present.

If you happen to be a female Gambels quail, I'm sure you'd be in love right now!

Progress

I'm slowly working my way back into painting and doing other types of art-business stuff. My brother is still on the mend from his quadruple coronary bypass surgery, and I know I'll still need to go out there once or twice a week to check up on him after our oldest brother returns home.

I managed to finish and varnish two small paintings this week -- pix to follow -- and I've started another painting showing a Colorado scene. I still need to re-vamp my Website (in fact, NOW would be the perfect time to order a painting, especially if you live in California: the sales tax rate went up on April 1st, and I haven't changed that yet on my Website!) My Website, in case you forgot or are unaware of the link over to the left, is http://www.southwestspaces.com/ or http://www.desert-paintings.com/).

But at least I'm in three shows right now and I actually put paint to surface today! That's progress!!

Three Exhibits

I was juried into the show in San Diego! It's hard to believe, but now I have works in three different shows and locations:

• Gallery 21, Spanish Village in Balboa Park, San Diego, CA, April 2-13, 2009;
• Hi-Desert Nature Museum, Yucca Valley, CA, ; March 7 - April 25, 2009;
• Twentynine Palms Art Gallery, Twentynine Palms, CA, March 30 - April 28, 2009.

All paintings in these shows are, of course, desert paintings. It'll be interesting to see how desert paintings go over in a seaside community.

The paintings in the San Diego show are featured above. So if you're in any of these areas within the dates I mentioned, stop by and have a look. If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail me through my Website at http://www.southwestspaces.com.

Paintings That Are Not the Desert

My older brother is on the mend, our oldest brother is staying with him to make sure the older brother continues to mend, and I have a little time to think about art again.

Tomorrow I'm off to San Diego to enter a couple of desert paintings in a show in Balboa Park. If the pieces are accepted by the jury, I'll post the info (and pix of the paintings) here.

But in the meantime, I'm sure you were wondering about the paintings I do that are NOT desert-themed.

Here's one. It's of Yosemite Valley as the sun is rising.

I loved the way the sun lit up just a narrow strip of trees while most of the Valley remained in shadow. As the sun continued to rise, more and more of the Valley flooded with light, and the special moment was gone -- until the next sunrise.

A Little Slow These Days

Art production has been a little slow these days.

I mentioned before that one of my brothers went in for a quadruple cardiac bypass operation last Monday. He's still in the hospital and will be there at least until Sunday. Thankfully the other brother is flying down from Washington and will be the 24/7 helper.

It's a 90-minute drive each way to get to where he is (if there's no traffic), so between a three-hour roundtrip drive, visiting him and going by his home to feed the kitty and take care of a few things, I haven't had much time to work on any aspect of art.

Which is unfortunate, since surviving in this economy is already more than a fulltime job.

So for now, I'll settle for mentioning the URLs (including the alternate URL) for my Website: southwestspaces.com and desert-paintings.com. I've made some minor updates to the site, but I'm looking forward to adding new works and making some other changes I have in mind.

I also plan to paint other types of landscapes, including the mountains of Colorado, the California coast, and the forests of New England and the redwoods of California. These works will be for people who may not appreciate the desert as much as I do, and it happens I love those areas, too!

Stay tuned. Good things are coming!